Current state of the art Chemical/Biological (CB or Chem-Bio) protective garments do not provide an acceptable and safe means of connecting the garments to external life support systems such as cooling and heating, bladder relief, gas, hydration and nutrition delivery systems without exposing the user to undue risk of exposure to external health and safety threats. The lack of a safe and easy connectivity for these life support systems poses serious risks for their users, which are often individuals involved in some aspect of public safety or military operations. Contributing to the problem of development of an effective connectivity system in these CB applications is the fact that CB Protective Suits have an effective use time of only 24 hours on average depending upon the CB agents that are involved. In many cases if external systems are connected to CB Protective Suits they are installed by crude cuts or tears into the Suit and sealed by duct tape or some other similarly unsafe method.
For body waste management, NASA has developed several systems for use with pressurized suits. These include 1) male urine collection systems consisting of external catheters connected to polymeric containment bags, or garments worn inside the suit, 2) female urine collection systems, consisting of multilayered undergarments with both conductive and super absorbent layers, and 3) fecal containment systems consisting of absorbent undergarments that collect and contain fecal matter until the pressure suit is doffed. These waste management systems, however, have been found to pose an unacceptable psychological demands upon the users, especially in their military applications.
A study by the United States Army was conducted using a retractable-arm design for protective suits. The user of a CB Suit would unzip a bellows located under the arms and retract their arms into the suit, leaving the gloves attached to the sleeves. This would allow greater freedom of movement during waste management procedures. Additionally other options were researched for fecal and urine collection. For fecal collection, the users would use a fecal collection bag for waste. This system was comprised of a fecal collection bag that had a contoured opening that attaches to the perianal area of the user using an adhesive ring. After its use the adhesive ring would then be folded up to form an air-tight seal containing what can be a disagreeable effluent.
For urinary waste, two systems have been developed, one for males and one for females. The system for males utilizes a urine collection device that consists of a 750 to 1000 ml urinary collection bag with an attached latex condom catheter. The system for females uses the same collection bag as the male system but interfaced with an external urethral catheter. Both of these systems in the CB Suit utilize pockets on the interior of the CB Suit to provide storage for the collection bags and other hygiene items.
In testing the extremes of duration for use of this type of waste management system, the urine and fecal collection options were analyzed. Serious problems with the systems were discovered. The collection bags over time resulted in voluminous and forceful voids and some splash-back because the inlet aperture on the urine collection bags were not large enough to handle the rate of flow. The 750 ml storage bag was found to be too small to accommodate larger voids. Despite the fact that the fecal collection system during the test exhibited no spillage or serious problems of note, the total time required to complete the waste management procedure was about 35 minutes, which is entirely unacceptable in an emergency or military setting.
Complicating the waste management problems of CB Suits are the risks involved with heat stress. The perspiration and heat buildup, both from trapped body heat and heat absorption from the environment, is not able to escape the over garments. This condition causes a threat of heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Even the new JSLIST (joint service lightweight integrated suit technology) does not protect against heat stress.
It is known in the art that in high temperatures, the average CB Suit user can do physical work in chemical protective clothing only for a few hours or less, depending on the individual and the external environmental conditions. Research has shown that with forced fluid intake and work-rest cycles, work time can be extended. It has been conclusively demonstrated just how important it is that CB Suit users remain hydrated, especially in high temperature environments. Yet many CB Suit users (i.e. public safety personnel, military personnel) will intentionally dehydrate themselves prior to donning the CB Suits for the express purpose of avoiding the future necessity of relieving their bladders. The effect of dehydration impairs performance and can lead to serious health problems such as painful, incapacitating kidney stones. The symptoms of dehydration include headaches, muscle fatigue, poor decision-making, impaired hand-eye coordination and lightheadedness. The latter can lead to performance degradation, loss of morale, threats to public safety and mission failure. So, a recommended regularized drinking regimen to protect against heat stress will require periodic urination. CB Suits, containing zippers and rear flaps, are poorly designed for waste elimination without the risk of compromising the protective capabilities of the Suit. Most soldiers in training when needing to urinate or defecate while in the presence of a simulated threat will simply unzip and void without the requisite fear of the consequences and expose themselves to harmful agents.
In military uses of CB Suits many soldiers will often urinate and/or defecate in their protective garments. This in turn, wets the charcoal lining which will ultimately compromise the integrity of the suit. Prolonged exposure to fecal matter and urine can cause skin damage. Upon prolonged exposure irritation of the skin appears first and then the skin breakdown occurs. Feces also contain bacteria that can permeate allowing for infections and may progress rapidly to ulcerations, including bacterial and yeast infections. Lastly, constant moisture can alter the skins' protective pH balance.
Avoiding urination can also lead to bladder over distension, pain, trouble emptying, and can eventually lead to urinary incontinence. A full, distended bladder can cause a stretching of the bladder muscle, thus leading to a more floppy bladder which can not contract as well as before being stretched. This imparts some ‘laziness’to the bladder to empty properly and can result in lifelong bladder disability.
The relatively short life span of a CB Protective Suit in use (approx. 24 hours) makes it impractical to incorporate within the garment a means of cooling and heating, gas, hydration, nutrition and bladder relief. Also because of the bulk of such life support systems it is not practical to contain these systems inside the Suit along with the user. There is a long felt need for a connection system that can be field installed without tools that will permit the user to connect to whatever external life support systems that may be needed given the circumstances of the use of the Suit.
In many applications where CB Protective Suits are used it would be advantageous to be able to introduce clean air and/or oxygen inside the Suit. By maintaining a positive air pressure in the Suit, which in most instances is not air tight, would significantly reduce the likelihood of outside ambient and potentially hazardous air from entering into the suit. Having connectivity for an external gas source to connect to an internal gas mask further improves the versatility of the Suit and the safety of the user.
While the prior art disclose various systems of providing life support connection to CB Protective Suits which fulfill their respective particular objectives and requirements, and are most likely quite functional for their intended purposes, it will be noticed that none of the prior art cited disclose an apparatus and/or method that allow a user ease of field installation, comfort of automatic operation, easy disposal, sanitary use in the field and large volume capacity, and quick and safe connection and disconnection to several life support systems thereby permitting a user to work several hours in relative comfort and safety. As such, there apparently still exists the need for a new and improved life support connection system to maximize the benefits to the user and minimize the risks of injury from its use.
This optimum connectivity for any life support system would allow a CB Protective Suit user to quickly and sanitarily: urinate; hydrate; breath compressed air; take in a food source; and/or heat or cool their bodies, without the necessity of doffing the Suit or exposing a portion of their body to potentially fatal chemical or biological agents, and to then remove the life support system(s), if desired, that is external to the user without exposure to the elements from which the CB Suit is being used to protect the user. In this respect, the present invention disclosed herein substantially fulfills this need.